Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about Phase II and Phase III testing schedule can be found here
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
Review: After playing for several months.
myaccforash2
Member, Alpha Two
Played Ashes for a few months and decided to write a review.
I can see that the developers don’t play their own game and, apparently, are not receiving any feedback.
1. MMORPG
The first question that comes to mind: What kind of game are you making – an MMORPG or a session-based game?
A session-based game implies that a player joins, competes under equal conditions, and leaves.
An MMORPG is about continuous character progression – the more time and effort invested, the stronger the character becomes.
You have successfully killed the core principle of an MMORPG. (Hello, diminishing returns.)
Tell me, WHY should I pay for a subscription for months and even keep playing if I’ll reach average stats within a month, and any further effort over the next several months will barely give me +20%? WHY?
2. CRAFTING
Who came up with the idea to base crafting on geometric progression?
In the previous phase, crafting was relevant and actively used. But now it's been handed over to someone who decided,
“Hey, let’s make a crafting system based on geometric progression...”
For an economy to work, the cost of production must be lower than the market price.
If crafting an item costs multiple times more than its market value, no one will bother creating it. It’s pointless.
Is this really such a hard concept to grasp that it needs to be explained on the forum?
3. WORLD BOSSES
The first reason to kill a boss is loot.
If the loot is trash, there’s no point in killing it. Currently, the loot is trash.
If the boss drops relevant loot and players want to compete for it, the next question is:
“How do we make this competition interesting?”
Obviously, the entire event area should be a PvP zone, where the boss goes to the strongest group.
The boss should have enough HP to allow regrouping — even more than once.
In other words, there should be a real battle for the boss, not a situation where he’s dead before you even log in.
Boss respawn: the boss should not respawn with the server restart.
He should have an independent timer with a constant shift.
Ideally, it should be every 2–3 days plus a few hours.
That way, it becomes a major event for the entire server, not a daily chore.
4. ENHANCEMENT (Gear Upgrading)
What is enhancement? It's basically a legalized form of gambling, where you place a bet:
if you lose — you suffer losses, if you win — you gain.
The more you bet, the more you should win.
In your version, enhancement was boring in Phase 1, and in this phase, you’ve completely ruined it.
Enhancement must involve real progression.
Each successful upgrade should provide increasingly significant bonuses, and risks should also rise —
starting with the possibility of item destruction.
A player should feel the temptation to risk a legendary +10 item to push it to +11.
He’s risking a lot, but the reward should also be massive.
For example:
Up to +4: safe, gives +1 per upgrade
From +5 onward: increasing break chance
+6 gives +3, +7 gives +5, +8 gives +7, and so on
Enhancement solves two problems: removes gold from the economy and takes items out of circulation.
Of course, a good mathematician is needed to balance it with other game stats.
In your current version, it’s simply not worth it.
Check this out: https://www.aoc-planner.gg/ — see what +10 gives.
Months of effort just for +5% stats? That’s nonsense.
5. LEVELING
Why did you add a level cap? It’s unnecessary.
You don’t have to grant new skills with levels — just give a small stat boost per level.
This would solve two things:
Players would always be motivated to progress and grow their stats.
Death would actually have consequences.
Of course, the higher the level, the smaller the percentage of loss on death should be.
6. NODES
Let’s start from the beginning.
What do you need to do to level up a node?
Complete quests, submit resources for tickets.
But why are the tickets useless?
Why can’t you buy valuable, desirable items with them?
For example: legendary consumables (expensive), rare recipes (expensive), etc.
Make tickets a valuable currency everyone wants.
Also, scale the number of tickets based on resource tiers — tier 2, 3, etc. should give more.
What should a node need to engage in war with others?
It should have enough crafting stations to make it worth attacking a rival with similar infrastructure.
Right now, node wars feel like shooting yourself in the foot.
It should have citizens who don’t change residence every 1.5 days just for voting.
The longer you are a citizen, the more benefits you get.
Example: +1% HP for every week of citizenship.
Someone who has stayed for six months and gained +24% HP won’t want their node to fall.
You’ve added so many nodes that I seriously doubt it will ever work.
I don’t see the vision for how this system is supposed to function — and clearly, neither do the developers.
7. BALANCE
You’re trying to balance veteran players who have spent significant time in the game with newbies.
That’s technically possible — but what’s the point of playing for months (or years)
if your character ends up only slightly stronger than someone who played for a month?
If you can balance players with equal gear levels — that alone would be a great success.
But don’t try to balance newbies and veterans — that kills the whole point of an MMORPG.
A player who invested hundreds of hours should be stronger than several casuals combined.
8. CONCLUSION
I truly hope at least one developer reads this post.
As of now, our entire clan has quit the game — and it’s only been 40 days since the server launch.
Our characters are fully geared, and there’s no reason to keep playing.
I can see that the developers don’t play their own game and, apparently, are not receiving any feedback.
1. MMORPG
The first question that comes to mind: What kind of game are you making – an MMORPG or a session-based game?
A session-based game implies that a player joins, competes under equal conditions, and leaves.
An MMORPG is about continuous character progression – the more time and effort invested, the stronger the character becomes.
You have successfully killed the core principle of an MMORPG. (Hello, diminishing returns.)
Tell me, WHY should I pay for a subscription for months and even keep playing if I’ll reach average stats within a month, and any further effort over the next several months will barely give me +20%? WHY?
2. CRAFTING
Who came up with the idea to base crafting on geometric progression?
In the previous phase, crafting was relevant and actively used. But now it's been handed over to someone who decided,
“Hey, let’s make a crafting system based on geometric progression...”
For an economy to work, the cost of production must be lower than the market price.
If crafting an item costs multiple times more than its market value, no one will bother creating it. It’s pointless.
Is this really such a hard concept to grasp that it needs to be explained on the forum?
3. WORLD BOSSES
The first reason to kill a boss is loot.
If the loot is trash, there’s no point in killing it. Currently, the loot is trash.
If the boss drops relevant loot and players want to compete for it, the next question is:
“How do we make this competition interesting?”
Obviously, the entire event area should be a PvP zone, where the boss goes to the strongest group.
The boss should have enough HP to allow regrouping — even more than once.
In other words, there should be a real battle for the boss, not a situation where he’s dead before you even log in.
Boss respawn: the boss should not respawn with the server restart.
He should have an independent timer with a constant shift.
Ideally, it should be every 2–3 days plus a few hours.
That way, it becomes a major event for the entire server, not a daily chore.
4. ENHANCEMENT (Gear Upgrading)
What is enhancement? It's basically a legalized form of gambling, where you place a bet:
if you lose — you suffer losses, if you win — you gain.
The more you bet, the more you should win.
In your version, enhancement was boring in Phase 1, and in this phase, you’ve completely ruined it.
Enhancement must involve real progression.
Each successful upgrade should provide increasingly significant bonuses, and risks should also rise —
starting with the possibility of item destruction.
A player should feel the temptation to risk a legendary +10 item to push it to +11.
He’s risking a lot, but the reward should also be massive.
For example:
Up to +4: safe, gives +1 per upgrade
From +5 onward: increasing break chance
+6 gives +3, +7 gives +5, +8 gives +7, and so on
Enhancement solves two problems: removes gold from the economy and takes items out of circulation.
Of course, a good mathematician is needed to balance it with other game stats.
In your current version, it’s simply not worth it.
Check this out: https://www.aoc-planner.gg/ — see what +10 gives.
Months of effort just for +5% stats? That’s nonsense.
5. LEVELING
Why did you add a level cap? It’s unnecessary.
You don’t have to grant new skills with levels — just give a small stat boost per level.
This would solve two things:
Players would always be motivated to progress and grow their stats.
Death would actually have consequences.
Of course, the higher the level, the smaller the percentage of loss on death should be.
6. NODES
Let’s start from the beginning.
What do you need to do to level up a node?
Complete quests, submit resources for tickets.
But why are the tickets useless?
Why can’t you buy valuable, desirable items with them?
For example: legendary consumables (expensive), rare recipes (expensive), etc.
Make tickets a valuable currency everyone wants.
Also, scale the number of tickets based on resource tiers — tier 2, 3, etc. should give more.
What should a node need to engage in war with others?
It should have enough crafting stations to make it worth attacking a rival with similar infrastructure.
Right now, node wars feel like shooting yourself in the foot.
It should have citizens who don’t change residence every 1.5 days just for voting.
The longer you are a citizen, the more benefits you get.
Example: +1% HP for every week of citizenship.
Someone who has stayed for six months and gained +24% HP won’t want their node to fall.
You’ve added so many nodes that I seriously doubt it will ever work.
I don’t see the vision for how this system is supposed to function — and clearly, neither do the developers.
7. BALANCE
You’re trying to balance veteran players who have spent significant time in the game with newbies.
That’s technically possible — but what’s the point of playing for months (or years)
if your character ends up only slightly stronger than someone who played for a month?
If you can balance players with equal gear levels — that alone would be a great success.
But don’t try to balance newbies and veterans — that kills the whole point of an MMORPG.
A player who invested hundreds of hours should be stronger than several casuals combined.
8. CONCLUSION
I truly hope at least one developer reads this post.
As of now, our entire clan has quit the game — and it’s only been 40 days since the server launch.
Our characters are fully geared, and there’s no reason to keep playing.
0
Comments
2; they are aware. They wanted to use phase 2.5 of this alpha test to, you know, test some things out. Phase 3 will have some changes here, so will every phase of alpha and beta until release.
3; most of the games equipment has not yet been created. That is no reason they can't put the encounters on to the alpha test environment in order to test them out.
4; correct, it is a form of gambling - that is the intention of the system. It is one of the few aspects of Ashes where RNG is a serious factor. If you are not willing to risk it, don't. This is something they plan in iterating on during the rest of alpha, wnd probably well in to beta.
Also, as a system in general, everything about this is in flux until they have something that meets their stated goals.
5, no. A character progression cap is essential in a PvP focused MMORPG.
6, indeed, systems that are only partially implemented do not make sense. The bulk of the reason for node sieges and node wars has not been implmented in to this alpha test as yet.
7; they aren't really trying to balance anything yet. They are still creating the game. That is why this is an alpha test. What we have on the alpha test is a rough outline, not a fully detailed combat, gear and progression system.
8; the reason you should want to continue testing (not playing, testing) is to make the game better. However, taking a break and coming back to level up again with the next major build is not a bad idea - you shouldn't want or expect to spend as much time in an alpha test as you do in a live game.
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While I do agree that most of your points are valid as the alpha test environment stands right now, you do seem to be missing the point that this is an alpha, things are supposed to be generally kind of bad (Stevens words), not everything is implmented, nothing is implmented in the way it will be on live, and the developers are generally still busy creating the game rather than reacting to feedback on issues that will likely be resolved anyway when they get more of the games systems and content in to the alpha test environment.